by K. Bromberg
“No. Just . . .” I blink my eyes several times trying to unsee what I’m seeing. The same shaped eyes, the same chin. It’s barely noticeable with the difference in their skin colors, but I can see it. And now I can’t not see it. “Is it true?” I ask, my voice a croaked whisper.
My dad’s mouth pulls tight as he meets my eyes. And nods. “Easton, let me—”
“Fuck this.” I turn on my heel to escape as he calls after me. Walking to jogging to full-on sprinting. Anything to get out of this concrete maze that feels like quicksand pulling me under.
I need fresh air.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
I shove open the door to the parking lot. My hands are on my knees as I suck in air.
Scout.
I need Scout.
I jog home. Fidget restlessly in the elevator pushing the P button several times as if it will make it ascend faster.
The door opens.
“Scout! Scout!”
She runs out from the bedroom and stops in her tracks when she sees me.
“Easton.” Her voice is calm, her eyes are cautious. “Your dad just called. What happened?”
“What did he say?” She takes a step toward me and I take one back. I just . . . I need . . . what is happening here?
“Oh shit,” she says, voice cracking. She takes a deep breath and looks back at me.
“You knew?”
“Not for sure. I still don’t,” she stutters in argument. My chest constricts from her words. “I ran into your dad and Santiago the other day—”
“What? When? Where? Christ.” It dawns on me: Scout wide-eyed and out of breath when she slammed open the doors to the parking lot. “Was it when my dad followed you out of the stadium?”
She nods.
Fucking hell. Why would she keep it from me if she thought . . .
Anger slowly creeps and seeps into every part of me. “You knew and didn’t tell me?”
She holds her hands up. “I overheard them whispering a few words and drew my own conclusions, but I didn’t know for sure. And I sure as hell didn’t ask.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I want to shout at her, shake her, get some kind of reaction out of her because I have so much anger and confusion eating at me from the inside out that I don’t know what to do or say or how to feel.
But I can’t. This isn’t her fault. Not a damn fucking thing. No, Santiago isn’t her fault. He’s my dad’s.
“I was going to tell you—”
“But you didn’t. Were . . . were you going to?”
“After tomorrow night.” Her voice is so soft compared to my shouting. Day to my night. Light to my dark. Fucked to my fucked up. “I didn’t want it to affect you and the broadcast. You’ve been studying so hard and I wanted you to have a clear head and—”
“Yeah, well, that’s shot to hell now, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
My dad has another kid. How long has he known about him? How long has he kept him a secret? Does my mom . . . Shit. My mom.
“Santi-fucking-ago.” I bring both hands to the sides of my head and walk from one length of the room to the other. So many thoughts. So many questions.
“Easton.” She reaches out to me and as much as I want to back away, to shrink into a hole and pretend this isn’t happening, I don’t. She’s the one person I trust right now when I feel like I can’t trust anyone.
Even myself.
“I feel like I’m drowning. Like I can’t breathe. I’ve got to go. To think. To . . . I don’t know what.”
I grab my car keys from the basket and push the button for the elevator.
“Stay. Talk to me. Please.” The break in her voice nearly kills me. Begs me to stay here when right now I know I can’t.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and wish this all away. When I open them though, nothing has changed. She’s still here, and he’s still my half-brother.
The two things I know for sure.
“I won’t do anything stupid,” I say as a tear slides down her cheek. “I just need some time to think.”
She nods. She gets me. She understands.
And yet I understand nothing.
“Open up.” The door rattles as I pound on it. “C’mon, Mom, open up.”
Lies upon lies. So many lies.
Anger. Confusion. Hurt. Betrayal. All four crash head-on inside me.
“Mom. I need you to answer the door.” Bang. Bang. Bang.
My dad’s the reason my mom is broken. His lies broke her.
“Easton? Easton, are you okay?” her slurred yet muted voice comes through the door before the distinct sound of the locks opening can be heard.
“Yes. No. I don’t fucking know,” I say as she opens the door, her face a picture of confused concern.
“What’s wrong?”
I walk right past her into the depressing house of hers—stuck back in time with more empty bottles cluttering the counter than I’ve ever noticed before—and try to hold back my rage that she doesn’t deserve. This isn’t her fault.
“Mom . . .” I don’t even know how to say this. “I know the truth. I know why you and Dad broke up.”
Her face pales and her hands grow shaky as she ambles unsteadily to the kitchen and unapologetically takes a huge gulp from her glass tumbler. Her back is to me but I can see her shoulders rise and fall as she takes in a fortifying breath. When she turns around to face me, she suddenly looks twenty years older.
“Why did we break up, East?”
“No. Don’t.” I walk over and take her glass out of her hand and toss it in the sink. She cries at the loss, but I’m so goddamn sick of her addiction I don’t care.
I need her more than she needs the alcohol right now and I don’t think she sees that. She never has.
I wonder if she ever will.
“We were young.”
“Bullshit. Everyone was young back then.” I run a hand through my hair and catch a glance of a picture on the wall of the three of us, and I fight the urge to smash my fist into it. “He cheated on you, didn’t he? He was in different cities every night with the team, and he was so goddamn selfish thinking only about himself instead of his family that he couldn’t keep his fly zipped.”
Her chin quivers as she braces herself on the counter and slowly lowers herself to a chair. I see the tears well. Notice her hands shaking. Hear her whisper, “Oh God.”
“And then he got someone pregnant.”
“No. Stop.” My mom covers her ears and a violent sob escapes from deep in her chest. She shakes her head back and forth, repeating the word no over and over again. She’s unhinged, much like I feel right now, but I desperately need to reach her. I need confirmation.
I need to hear her say it.
“Is that what happened? Is that what you’ve kept from me? You led me to believe he’s a good man when in reality he’s a piece of shit who loved himself more than he loved us?”
She starts rocking back and forth, her eyes flicking to the half-empty bottle within reaching distance, and she cries harder.
“No. He was . . . he’s going to—”
“Don’t make excuses for him. Don’t you ever make—”
My words fall flat as my thoughts finally align and fall into place.
He’s going to . . .
Present tense.
I’m across the room in a flash and shake her shoulders so she snaps out of it. I need to see her face when I ask the next question. The one that’s currently making me sick to my stomach.
“Who’s the love of your life, Mom?” Panic is all I see on her face. “Who? Is Dad the true love you’ve been waiting for?”
She doesn’t respond. Her lips open and close. She looks to the bottle again and then back to me. Need versus duty. Addiction against love.
It all makes sense now.
“That’s why you always kept those pictures of the three of us up on the wall, isn’t it? I thought you di
d it so I’d see our family wasn’t always broken. So that I’d know I was loved by two parents long after I was only allowed one parent at a time.”
“You were loved.”
“But that wasn’t it at all, was it? You left them up because you still love him. Because he loved the parts of you no one else loved.”
Her bloodshot eyes are glassy and her smile lopsided despite her tear-stained cheeks. “He said he’d make it right and come back for me.”
I stare at her. Disbelief owns every part of my soul when I thought I’d been shocked enough for one day.
And for the first time in my life, I wish I could be her. Addicted to something that has such a hold over you that you live in the past. Believe things that aren’t true.
Hold on to the lies you’ve told yourself just so you can get through the next second.
The next minute.
The next day.
The next bottle.
“He’s not here.”
Cal stands in the foyer, a defeated man. “Do you know where he went? I need to talk to him.”
“I think your actions have spoken loud enough.”
Did he make a mistake in his past? Obviously. Do I feel sorry for him? On the I’m-a-human-being level, yes. On the I-love-and-want-to-protect-Easton level, absolutely not.
“What do you want me to say, Scout?” He scrubs a hand over his face.
“You know what? He’s tried to live up to your perfection his whole damn life. He’s tried and failed and hated himself because he’s fallen short in more ways than you could ever imagine . . . and you let him believe that. You let him think he was less than your pristine image.”
“I did no such thing.” He says the words but there’s no conviction there. A proud man uncertain how to be humble.
“You don’t have a leg to stand on, Cal.” Agitated and worried about Easton, I pull on the back of my neck with both hands to try and calm myself. “Did you think this little secret of yours would never come out?”
He hangs his head for a beat before looking back at me. “Do you know the odds that someone I had an affair with way back when, would have a son who would also become a major league baseball player? The odds are so slim to even make it, let alone two kids from the same father.”
“How long have you known?” I ask. “Years? Months? How long have you been hiding this from Easton?”
“Santiago never knew I was his father.” He shakes his head as if he’s still trying to comprehend all of this. “After his mother died last year, he found some newspaper clippings she’d saved on me. He connected the dots and approached me in March.”
Eight months.
“You’ve had months. You weren’t going to tell Easton, were you?” My tone is not half as bitter as I feel.
“I don’t know.” He pauses. “Yes. Eventually.”
I’m not sure if I believe him or not. “So in the meantime you were going to what? Stand on the sidelines and watch Santiago continue to sabotage Easton’s career?”
He stutters. The words he wants to say don’t make it past his lips. “I’m—I’m still in shock.”
“Shock or no shock, Cal, it’s him,” I yell unable to get the words out fast enough. “The guy who deliberately hurt your son. The one who ruined his career. Do you not care? Did you not think to protect him from—”
“You have no idea what—”
“Did you know before he hurt Easton?” My stomach churns at the thought.
“No. I swear. I didn’t. Santiago was hurting. His mom had just died for Christ’s sake, and he’d spent a lifetime without a father. So he was alone and left to realize the one guy whose career he envied the most was none other than his half-brother.”
He was hurting. The sentence sticks in my head. The familiarity in his tone. The excuse for the inexcusable. Well, Easton was hurt too—then and now—more than I think Cal will ever fathom.
I stare at him, mouth agape, and head shaking as if I’m trying to believe what I’m hearing. “Please tell me you’re not excusing Santiago for hurting Easton.” My voice is ice cold.
“I’m not. It’s just . . . Jesus Christ.” He walks to one side of the house and then back to the other. He’s got to know he’s in a no-win situation here.
“There’s nothing you can say to dignify what Santiago’s done. How can you even let him into your life knowing what he did to Easton?”
“But he’s my son.” His voice is whispered disbelief.
“For the past twenty-five years, Easton was your only son. Funny thing is I’ve yet to see you cut him any of the slack you sure as hell have shown Santiago.”
Tears well in his eyes. I can see his pain. His uncertainty over what to do. The chaos inside his soul.
And a very tiny part of me feels sorry for him.
The other part of me despises him for destroying so many lives. His wife’s with his infidelity and then condemning his son to be her caregiver year after year—watching her suffer and stumble. His son’s by constantly making him feel less than he ought, and then bringing his bastard child into his face as if to taunt him.
It’s late.
The lot is a ghost town.
I’m not sure how long I sit in the truck staring at the gray concrete walls of the parking garage to my building, but I can’t bring myself to go upstairs just yet.
So many goddamn lies I can’t wrap my head around them all. What to believe. What not to believe. How my mom can be so fucked up she still thinks my dad is going to come back for her. How I share the same blood with Santiago when I fucking despise him.
I climb out of the truck. The looks on my dad’s and Santiago’s faces etched in my mind. And then my mom’s. Her pitiful love for a man who’ll never come back for her. And my pathetic hope that this is all a dream.
“Easton.”
I’m halfway toward the elevator. I stand there in no man’s land—so close to home—and grit my teeth.
I don’t want to do this right now.
I don’t want to see him.
I don’t want to face this.
“Easton.”
I snap.
“You couldn’t keep your dick in your pants, could you? Big, bad, on-top-of-the-world baseball player had to fuck anything with two tits, a hole, and a heartbeat to keep your god complex at full speed.”
“It wasn’t like that. Can we go upstairs? Somewhere private?”
“Oh, of course. You want to keep this on the down-low so we don’t ruin the image you have of being Mr. Fucking Perfect . . . Well, you’re not so goddamn perfect after all, are you?”
He takes a step toward me. “We need to talk, son.”
“Don’t you son me!” I turn to face him for the first time, and just like my mom did, he looks like he’s aged one hundred years tonight. He looks old. Tired. Broken. And the fact that I care only pisses me off further and fuels my fire. “How many other siblings do I have, Dad? Maybe I have a sister in Dallas. And another brother in New York. Hell, maybe there’s one in every city you’ve ever played in. Lucky me.”
“It wasn’t like that, Easton. His mother never told me more than she was pregnant. I didn’t even know that there was a him to begin with.”
“Let me guess. She told you she was pregnant, and you wanted to get rid of ‘the little problem’ so you shelled out some cash to shut her up and for her to get an abortion. Anything to avoid ruining your reputation. And, lo and behold, she didn’t do what she was told.”
“Easton.” His eyes narrow as he takes a step toward me. “Who the hell do you think I am?”
“I don’t know anymore.” The words are the calmest ones I’ve spoken, but by his grimace, I know they cut the deepest.
“It wasn’t like that. I promise you it wasn’t.” He runs a hand through his hair and looks around to make sure we’re still alone. “She told me she was pregnant but didn’t want me to have any part of the baby’s life. That it wasn’t fair to my family and it wasn’t fair to her and the baby. For each of you
to get half of me.”
“How convenient.”
“I’m serious. I didn’t even know about him until he sought me out earlier this year.” He’s known for months and didn’t fucking tell me?
“So what? You told Mom you had a baby momma on the side and you ruined our family anyway?”
“It wasn’t like that,” he repeats for what feels like the hundredth time.
“Then what was it like? Enlighten me. Why don’t you tell me what it was like to throw away a normal life for your son because you were too goddamn selfish to put him before yourself.”
“I’m not proud of what I did, but—”
“Big of you to take some ownership, Cal.”
“I tried to hide your mom’s drinking from you,” he says, talking right over my sarcasm.
“She didn’t drink until after you left us.”
“You didn’t know she drank until then because I sheltered you from it. Hid it from you.”
“That’s a fucking bullshit cop-out, and you know it,” I shout at the top of my lungs.
He’s going to blame this on my mom? Fuck him.
“Think about it, Easton. Think back to when you were a kid, but look at it through the eyes of an adult.”
I stare at him and reject the words he’s saying, despite the random memories they trigger that never made sense. Surprise pickups from school where he and I would spend the night at a hotel even though it was a school night. The garbage can that clinked like glass bottles when I had to help drag it down to the edge of the driveway for the trash pickup. His only explanation being that they were beer bottles from the guys coming over to play poker, except I never remembered any guys coming over. Last minute road trips with the team when I was supposed to stay home because I’d already missed too much school.
I don’t want to believe any of the memories because that would mean he’s telling the truth, and right now, his truth is not something I trust.
“Your mom had two loves. You and her alcohol. She became married to the bottle and had no room left for me.” There’s hurt in his eyes that I refuse to acknowledge. “Maybe I’m the one who caused it. Maybe my traveling and leaving her with a young and energetic little boy was too much for her to handle. I’ll never know, Easton. But in a period of six years, we went from being this loving household to one where she shut me out. It’s no excuse, but I was lonely. My affair had to do with so much more than sex. It had to do with companionship. It was having someone to talk to at the end of the day. Was it wrong? Yes. Were there better ways of handling it? Definitely. But I held on to our family for as long as possible and then Maria became pregnant.”